Digest: After false alarm, astronauts finish spacewalk
NASA
After alarm, astronauts complete spacewalk
NASA astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday completed a spacewalk that had been delayed after a false alarm woke the crews of the station and the visiting space shuttle Atlantis.
Atlantis crew members Michael Foreman and Randy Bresnik installed communications antennas and set cargo attachment mechanisms to the station's truss during their excursion, which lasted a little over six hours.
Earlier they had halted a body-conditioning sleepover in a low-pressure chamber on the station after a false depressurization alarm shut down ventilation fans.
The problem, which interrupted the sleep of crews on the station and the shuttle Atlantis for a second consecutive night, appeared to stem from a new Russian docking module that arrived at the station on Nov. 12.
Foreman and Bresnik were sleeping inside the station's Quest airlock when alarms indicated a rapid depressurization of the station.
Flight controllers quickly realized it was a false alarm, but the system automatically shut down ventilation fans, which in turn allowed dust to swirl in the microgravity environment, triggering false smoke detection alarms.
-- Reuters
Charges against Blackwater guard to be dropped: The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said Friday. The shooting left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. Prosecutors did not explain their desire to drop the case against Nicholas Slatten.
Klan rallies at Mississippi football game: About a dozen hooded Ku Klux Klan members rallied briefly at the University of Mississippi before Saturday's football game with No. 10 Louisiana State. The members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan spent about 10 minutes waving flags, occasionally gesturing at a group of about 250 hecklers that included young children. They were protesting the school's decision to drop a pep song that included "Dixie."
-- From News Services
Source: Washington Post
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